


Curfew

by winterhats



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, F/M, Gen, yes it's a summer camp au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-24 17:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterhats/pseuds/winterhats
Summary: There are certain rumors about this forest. About some bright, yellow eyes and crazy smile. But those are only the stories you tell while watching the fire along with your friends. Right?When strange disappearances start happening at camp, thirteen year olds Shintaro and Ayano start playing detective. Which means that Shintaro doesn't want anything to do with it and Ayano just drags him along.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of finishing other works or updating that other fic I have, I write other stuff. This time is a dumb au which I love and I've been thinking about a really long time now.  
> Just a few days ago I got around finally writing it! It's mostly about mystery and stuff, so the shipping isn't that important anyway, but it's shinaya yay. There's probably going to also be some harutaka because they're also important in the story. Anyway I'll stop talking. Sorry in advance for typos and OOC-ness.

Not that it was a surprise, but the night was hot and unsufferable. He'd like to at least have a starry sky to look at, but of course that at this recondite place, there's only a black smudge when you look up.

The fire they were sitting around certainly didn't help the situation with heat. It's something Shintaro never thought of before coming to camp; how much sense did it have to set on fire some pieces of wood and sit around it when there's this kind of weather? Summer camps are, with no doubt, absolutely stupid.

"The little girl insists she hears something. She insists there's something with them at the woods," the girls' cabin head counselor continues her story, and Shintaro is definitely _not_  afraid. "Her father told her she was just tired. She'd have plenty of rest when they make it home. The girl believes him, despite her father was also hearing the same things. The difference was that he could make out the sound– a hissing sound."

He's not scared of the voice she's using or of the way the fire's light hit her face and make her look creepy. Not at all. He turns to see the other campers, and being almost all of them younger than Shintaro, they're shivering in the dark, his own sister hiding her face and peeking from her fingers.

Shintaro gulps and presses against his chest an empty bag of marshmallows. He looks at the girl sitting next to him, because she was the only weirdo listening with attention as if this was a class. Her eyes shining with curiosity and leaning closer and closer at each word the counselor said.

"And so, they keep walking, but the sound only got stronger, as if they were walking straight into the trap. But they could see, at the distance, the lights of their little house in the woods; they've made it home. The girl's father doesn't have the time to think they didn't leave the lights on. Their legs trembling with fear, they struggle the rest of the way against their own trepidation–"

"W – what does trepidation mean?"

"Shh, Momo! Let her finish!"

As if nothing, the counselor continues, "Just as the father is grabbing his keys, the door swings open by itself. There's a black spot inside the house, and it looks at them with its big, phosphorescent red eyes. And before either the little girl or her father could do anything, the red-eyed beast runs in their four skinny legs directly at them asking– _'COULD YOU GIVE ME SOME DIRECTIONS!?'_ "

She yells the last part with every tiny bit of air she probably had, standing up and creating a huge, creepy shade of her own body as she stands by the fire. All the campers scream back in fear, some starting to sob and just– a mess, overall. Of course Shintaro wasn't part of the screaming or crying. What makes you think that?

He puts a hand to his heart, and feels its panicked pacing. The girl next to him also got jump-scared, but she didn't scream, just gasped, and she was now clapping and yelling, "Tell it one more time!"

The other person who wasn't scared was the boys' cabin counselor, who stands up and glares and the laughing-to-death girls' counselor, "Takane, that wasn't funny."

"Oh, c'mon, Haruka!" she says, in between laughs. "I tell the same goddamn story every week and their reactions only get better and better."

"They're kids. They're going to have nightmares all night again. And don't swear in front of them!"

"Not my fault I'm such a good story-teller."

"You're unbelievable sometimes," he sighs, and puts up a smile as he turns around to face the campers. Seeing his calm face somehow makes Shintaro feel better, but he's still pretty shaken-up. Clapping his hands together, Haruka says, "Time for bed!"

Everyone screams even louder.

* * *

 

When your mother packs you and your little sister for a filthy camp a second summer in a row, you know things aren't great at home.

After their father's death, Shintaro's mother started to over-work herself. That is the only existing reason he forgives her for doing this to him, because a summer camp is basically a summary of everything he hates.

The sun, sports, people. Shintaro suffers each second he's in this place.

He understands his mother's decision, but... _why_  does it have to be _this_  camp? Sure, he gets that it's part of her childhood and all but wow, this is gross.

It's very infamous, small, and its ubication is what you would call  _not in the map_. It's like they chose the most desert woods area and put this up here. No one knows about it, and the people that do, just use it to tell urban stories and legends, including the campers themselves. That is to say, camp Heat Haze is a very crappy place.

It's so pathetic it has _nine_  campers in total, including Shintaro himself and his little sister, Momo. It's run by the target of all the creepy stories about this place, Miss Azami.

She is the camp's director, and a creepy, small woman. She has the kind of face that looks like "I could be either seventy or twenty." She never goes out of her cabin except for meal times and as far as Shintaro knows, people think she's the Beast from the story. Her red eyes don't help her at all in that matter.

The only staff this place had was the kitchen guy and also everything-guy because if there was a problem with anything, Tateyama Kenjirou was most likely to be able to fix it. Or, obligated to, because he was the only person aside Miss Azami around here to act as an authority, because he's an adult (or an excuse of one, as Shintaro believes) and they were just a bunch of thirteen, eleven and eight years old.

(Well, "a bunch." They're nine campers.)

The other two people who could be considered "authorities" are Haruka and Takane, and even if they are only sixteen or seventeen, the campers used them as guidance. They were the only counselors and in Shintaro's opinion, as they were so little campers they weren't in need of two. They weren't in need of Takane. She sucks and Haruka's great.

They usually take care of them together, with Haruka actually doing his job and Takane only showing interest when violent sports or an opportunity to prank kids was in sight. They only part ways when boys and girls do, which is not often aside from the cabins or bath-time.

There were only two cabins in use of the campers, simply divided with genders, which Shintaro was grateful for since most of the people he couldn't stand were girls (he'd wish one of his cabin mates, Kano, was a girl too so he wouldn't have to deal with his stupid comments.)

Takane's an example, his little sister another, but the most notable is the one girl who was excited about any stories involving the Beast.

This girl's name is Ayano, she's Kenjirou's daughter and she's the only kid here who's the same age as Shintaro, which according to her, made them instant best friends. As it was mentioned earlier; she is a weirdo. She loves the legends about this place and thinks that the unexplained always has a supernatural answer.

Which, okay, Shintaro could slightly relate to. Of course he thinks there's a logical answer to everything, but he's kind of interested in conspiracies and that kind of stuff. If he wasn't, he would have already died of boredom around here.

He'd like her if she didn't talk _so much_  about it. She's too dense and stands too close to him. Even so, she somehow gets along great with absolutely everybody.

Right now, she's back at it with that stupid book of hers. It's some sort of sketchbook or story, he wasn't sure and he didn't care. The handwriting wasn't Ayano's, and she says this book belonged to her mother, which of course Shintaro thinks she made up. They were sitting in the dining area, and he was keeping himself busy as he watched through the window at the other kids play tag whilst Ayano talked and talked.

His sister was it. She was chasing (incredibly fast, he might add) poor eight year old Hibiya, who was running as fast as he could. Momo touches Hiyori instead, because she happened to be closer and now everyone was actually running for their lives.

The only other two kids who weren't playing were Kido and Mary. Kido was talking to Haruka and Takane, probably complaining about bugs again, and Mary made a flower crown, except that instead of flowers she was using sticks because this place is a dumpster where you'll never find flowers.

Mary is tiny and a real crybaby. She looks like she's five years old, to be honest, but she's eleven and it's weird to not see her clinging to Seto, an animal-lover kid who's also eleven and somehow looks older than Shintaro himself. She's really nice and smiles a lot, so it was hard to picture her as Azami's granddaughter. Actually, it was hard to picture Azami as a mother or a granny... or as a human with actual relationships and family.

Ayano keeps talking. Shintaro sees Kano stop in front of Kido, steal her cap from her head, and run away as Kido abandoned her conversation with the counselors and charged towards the other boy. Rest in peace.

"They say it sounds like a snake! And in Takane-san's stories she clearly says _hissing_  sound," Ayano says, and Shintaro's heard this so many times. She had a dead-end. There was nothing more to know. He wasn't even sure what she wanted to proof or why she wanted to know about this so badly. "Snakes don't live in woods, do they?"

He was about to ask her how stupid can she be when Azami enters. Kenjirou was at her side, talking eagerly about today's dinner, so Ayano quickly shove her book under her red t-shirt that said _Camp Heat Haze_. For some reason, she got very nervous when someone walked in on her talking to Shintaro about these things, especially if she had her book out. Especially if that someone was her father.

"Kids, whatcha doing in here?" Kenjirou asks once he sees them, raising an eyebrow. "Why aren't you playing outside with the other campers?"

Shintaro wanted to ask why Azami was out of her cabin when it wasn't meal-time, but then again, he reminds himself she's a person. He shakes his head, "It's too hot outside."

"You, I can understand. But you, Ayano?" he looks questioningly at his daughter. "You aren't sitting in a tree with this guy, are you?"

"Of course not!" she quickly says, her cheeks painting in a warm color that could match the Beast's eyes she's so obsessed with. "I was only trying to talk Shintaro-kun into playing with us..."

"Again?" Kenjirou sighs, "If he doesn't want to play outside that's his problem. Ayano, run along and stop bothering the campers."

He says that as if she wasn't a camper herself, but she doesn't discuss. Ayano awkwardly stands up and does her best to avoid walking near her father so he couldn't see the weird square bulge under on her shirt, and goes out. Shintaro almost wanted to thank him, but the man just glared at him like always.

Geez, he's just a kid. He's gotta hate him because his daughter hangs out around him? Shintaro blushes, but feels sorry for any partner Ayano could have in the future.

When he looks up again, Azami's gone. He's about to be scared when he sees her walking into the kitchen, but they lock eyes, and Shintaro feels himself freeze for a moment.

 _Just an illusion_ , he tells himself, moving again after a couple of seconds. _I just gotta survive until August 15th to come back home._

* * *

 

There were rules at the camp, of course. There were many, but three are the most important. They're so strict that Azami herself, who barely ever talks, repeats them at dinner every Monday.

They are,  


  1. Don't go out of your cabin after curfew.
  2. You aren't allowed to be by yourself anywhere. You have to always be accompanied.
  3. Do not go into the woods.



And everyone was okay with it. There were also the silent rules, that are the ones no one ever mentioned but everyone knows. Like, not knocking the door of Azami's cabin. Or like, if you have a problem, don't go to Azami to fix it, talk to either of the counselors. Do not even _look_  into the direction of the woods.

No one broke the rules. Except that Shintaro was breaking them right now.

He's breaking more than one and all three of the most important ones. He's out of the cabin after curfew. He's by himself. He's walking straight into the woods.

He wants to turn back. He's _scared_ , more than scared, super scared. He's going to pee himself. Shintaro believes he's sleep-walking, because he wants to stop and turn back but his legs won't respond, and he's hearing a voice. The voice is calling him.

Shintaro looks around the trees, and it's so dark he can barely make them out. He feels tears stinging in his eyes.

He's always been curious about the woods, and maybe if he was braver, he would have done this a while ago. Ayano told him she's done it a couple of times, but she didn't dare walk past the trees, so he can't understand how he can be so close and so unwilling to stop when even someone as brave as her was held back. He sees a faint yellow light in the distance, which he assumes to be fire or some of the kind, when a hand grabs his shoulder.

His body finally reacting, Shintaro yells and turns around. He feels dazed because of a flashlight's light going directly into his face, and without thinking throws a punch in the air that the person was able to dodge.

"Shintaro-kun!"

The voice was familiar, and when he opens his eyes and the light isn't trying to murder him anymore, he sees Haruka.

"What on Earth are you doing out of the cabin!?" this guy wasn't one to get angry, and in fact, he didn't sound angry at all. It looked like he wanted to be, but his voice was a mixture of worry and relief. "I almost had a heart attack when I saw your bunk empty!"

"I..." he dares to look back at the woods, but when he looks at Haruka again, he speaks with the most honest voice and words, "I have no idea."

Haruka looks unsatisfied and confused with that answer, but he looks at Azami's cabin and then at Kenjirou's before going back to Shintaro, "Swear that you're not lying."

"I swear!" Shintaro says, a little too loudly because Haruka shushes him. "I... I just woke up walking, and I couldn't stop, I..."

The other boy looks like he believes him, which was a relief. Shintaro didn't want to know what would happen if Azami found out. "It's okay. It'll be okay. Just... don't do this again."

"But–"

"Just don't. I don't care what happened, but if you hear the voices again just–" it was like he was forcing himself to say this, but when Haruka looks down, his expression turns into a grimace. "Oh, Shintaro-kun, you–"  
  
"The voices? How did you know?"

When Haruka doesn't answer, Shintaro looks down as well to see what was so interesting. He sighs and covers his face in embarrassment. He can't believe he _actually_ peed himself.

"Please don't tell anyone about that."

"I won't."

"Especially not that dumb friend of yours, Takane."

"I won't," Haruka repeats, finally offering a smile. "Let's go back to the cabin so you can change clothes and get yourself cleaned up, okay?"

Nodding, he accepts Haruka's hand and let him guide him to the cabin. Shintaro notices his legs are still trembling, and somehow manages to look back at the woods again. The yellow light was gone, but the woods were still calling him.  
  
"...Haruka, have you heard the voices too?"

He didn't answer. Shintaro didn't sleep well that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter written for ages now, I'm not sure why I'm publishing it just now. I guess I wanted to plan the story a little better in my head before I continued it!

When Shintaro asked Haruka to let him phone his mom, he told him they weren't getting enough signal to make a call.

Okay, so it's already clear how much of a dumpster this place is, but that was actually new. Sure, signal was very crappy, but it _was_  there. But of course that when Shintaro wanted to go back home more than ever, this happened to be the case.

"Once we get news we'll tell you, but for now we're all uncommunicated."

 _But for now, we're all stuck here_ , is what it sounded like to Shintaro.

He doesn't care if his mom thinks Momo and him are cheaper this way. He won't be trying his best to understand her decision and situation, because he's thirteen and goddammit, he shouldn't be thinking about anyone's feelings if he's this age. His mom will have to manage, it's her fault for having two kids.

Of course his father's death wasn't. Of course that left his sister traumatized and his mom all depressed but– but yeah. Shintaro will, from now on, do his best to avoid worrying about the stuff he shouldn't worry about. Even if coming to camp was the most comfortable decision for his mom's mental _and_  financial stability, he wasn't having any more of it.

He growls at his mediocre breakfast made with questionable ingredients as he tries to _not_  think about the night he almost went into the woods. That was almost a week ago; it was nothing. He shouldn't worry about it. Also, Haruka hasn't told anyone Shintaro peed his pants so that was cool.

He also didn't tell him anything about the voices or whatever, no matter how much he asked. Haruka dismissed it as if it wasn't important and, the last few days, as if he didn't know what Shintaro was talking about.

Shintaro wanted to shrug it off. He really, really wanted to. He forced himself to eat this morning as Azami herself stood at the end of the table and announced,

"One of our fellow campers, Asahina Hiyori, had to go back home because of a family emergency. Our activities will continue as normal."

It really bothered him. He saw Kenjirou's face of concern, and the way the counselours shared untrusting looks with each other. And Shintaro knew Hiyori didn't go back home.

Hibiya was especially annoying; he insisted she wouldn't have gone without telling him, and he threw a tantrum at every chance he could to whine about his friend (whom mistreated him a lot, so it was weird).

Shintaro locks eyes with Ayano and he knows she's making a conspiracy about Hiyori. He looks away.

Days continued to happen. He was anxious and nervous, and he even wanted to die a little more than usual. His sister picked up on his behaviour and started to steal pudding from the kitchen to give it to him,

"Turn around the frown, bro-bro," Momo tells him, smiling and stretching the bandaid on her cheek in the process. "You're being too hard on yourself! Let's just go play together, alright?"

Aside from his worrying little sister, no one paid him much attention because it was the usual for him to sit by himself and to not participate on sports and group activities in general (as he was, fortunately, not forced to do it).

The only other person who notices something was off is, of course, Ayano. She asked over and over what was wrong, but Shintaro found himself avoiding her more than ever.

It wasn't until two entire weeks after that one night that Ayano actually did something about it. After lunch, everyone was minding their business outside the mess hall and Shintaro was going back to his cabin; only place the "don't be by yourself anywhere" rule didn't apply.

Except that before he could even climb those three steps to the cabin, Ayano grabbed his arm and told him to "shh" without even letting him freak out properly about her creeping up on him.

He thought she'd drag him somewhere, but all she does is look around to check if someone's paying them attention, and then shuffles inside the boys' cabin with him.

"You can't be here!"

"Yes I can, it's not a rule," she answers, and Shintaro wanted to complain, but she wasn't really wrong.

Azami said it didn't make sense to not allow boys and girls to be alone together. Kenjirou complained a lot about it, but she kept using Haruka and Takane as her excuse saying that they never brought any trouble despite they did share the counselors cabin, so she couldn't imagine even younger kids that were supervised most of the time bring any other trouble. Still, to make the guy shut up, they didn't have mixed cabins.

"Okay then, what do you want?" Shintaro demands, and maybe he was kind of rude, but he didn't care. Ayano was probably going to talk about the Beast or whatever again and to be honest that's the last thing he wanted to hear about. "Make it quick, a nap's waiting for me."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me you almost went into the woods!"

He feels his heart stop, "...Did Haruka tell you?"

"In his defense, I was really really dense. I _knew_  something happened so I had to know," she immediately spits back, as if she had rehearsed this answer. She probably knew he'd ask this, after all. Still, something about what Ayano was saying bothered him. "I've been bugging him for days now, you can't really blame him. So, tell me in detail what happened, will you?"

Ayano made herself comfortable on one of the bunks, more specifically Kano's, and took out her book from who knows where. Except Shintaro notices it's not the same book she's always carrying with her, so he asks, "What's with the new book?"

"Oh, this? My... my new journal," she blushes, and looks down to it as she flips the pages to a blank one. "I'm writing down everything I know about the Beast so far."

"I thought your _mom_ 's book had it all already," he says, sitting down in the bunk in front of hers, and making sure to add air quotes when he said "mom." "What happened to it?"

"I lost it."

"You _lost_  it?"

He lets out a laugh, and to be honest, he felt like a jerk for it when Ayano looked even more embarrassed.

"Y – yeah, I'm very dumb, okay? Let's drop it," she shakes her head. "So? Will you tell me about it? About the yellow light?"

She taps her pen impatiently against the paper. Shintaro raises an eyebrow at the anxiousness she showed to change the subject and felt the same bothersome feeling from before. He knew she was now thinking about Hiyori. She probably thought the Beast took her or whatever. How did she know about the yellow light? Did Haruka tell her? Also–

"Wait," Shintaro crosses his arms, hoping he sounded as serious as he felt. "How did you know, of all people, you had to ask Haruka about what happened?"

For a second, Ayano makes a panicked face, "H – huh? Well, he does take care of the boys most of he time so I thought it... it made more sense than to ask Takane-san, right? P – plus, you like him better so I–"

"And how did you know about the yellow light? I don't think Haruka even saw that," he insists, getting her more visibly nervous by the second. "Dude, if you're gonna interrogate me then at least make sure to do it well. I'm not going to sit here and answer your dumb questions just so you can have a hobbie. How the hell did you know those things?"

Ayano pauses, and looks away again. Letting out a trembling sigh, she goes, "Promise you'll believe me?"

"No."

"...Okay, fair. But at least... promise me you won't laugh?"

He was about to say no again when he remembered it wasn't cool at all to laugh at something that was important to someone. He knew because he's been there. As annoying as Ayano is, he wasn't doing that to anyone, so he sighs and says, "Fine. Promise."

She offers a small smile that goes away as quick as it came, probably because Shintaro wasn't sending back any reassurance with his expression. She forces up another smile when she starts talking though,

"I had a dream," she mumbled, but it was coherent enough for him to understand. "I – I saw Haruka-san and Takane-san talking. They were about to go to sleep to their cabin, but Haruka-san said he forgot to check the boys' cabin first, so he stayed behind to do that. But when he got here, he saw your bed empty, and went out to find you. I don't remember what happened later, or if something happened at all. But the next day you started being super weird so I _know_  it's true! I usually ignore these dreams but this happened! Haruka-san confirmed to me his conversation with Takane-san and all! ...He thought I was spying on them or something, but that's not important!"

Shintaro could barely take it all in. He wanted to kick her out of the cabin, tell her she was crazy and never talk to this weirdo again but– but, dammit, he really didn't feel like she was saying lying, which sucked. Not because of this, but because of her other comment, "That dream doesn't explain the yellow light?"

"So you saw it too!?" Ayano sits at the edge of the bed, her journal about to slip from her lap. Then, most likely to herself, she goes, "So there _is_  a yellow light."

"Hey! You didn't answer me!" he complains. "Haruka didn't see the light! And you didn't either because if your dream was about him there was _no way_  you–"

"It was in another dream," she cuts him off. "A recurring one, actually. I had a strong feeling it had a lot to do with all of this so I asked, but now it's confirmed... Haruka-san told me what happened that night from his point of view. Can you do the same?"

"So you're telling me you see things in your dreams?"

She ignores him and starts to scribble down whatever she just "found out" and Shintaro makes a face. So he goes over his options: telling her off and kicking her out _or_  comply. If he did the first thing, she'd get super upset and and upset Ayano is way worse than happy Ayano, whilst if he complied then his nap would come faster and maybe Ayano won't bother him again because she'd be too busy playing detective. He sighs, and starts to tell his story.

It was short. There wasn't a lot to say, especially since he absolutely avoided mentioning he peed his pants, but Ayano listens with patience as she nibbles on her pen. He doesn't tell her she accidentally painted half of her lower lip in blue ink.

When he finishes she starts to write something down again, and he's about to ask her to leave when she speaks up again, "You know what this means, Shintaro-kun?"

"What?"

"There's a mystery to solve."

"Mystery? Yeah. To solve? Not so sure," he answers. "I don't care about this, okay? You can solve it by yourself, now if you excuse me, I would very much like you to leave me alone."

* * *

 

Ayano didn't leave him alone. Instead (he wasn't even sure how it happened) they were now sitting in the mess hall with Haruka and Takane in front of them, looking amused most likely at the fact they were trying to be detectives; still, they patiently wait for them to say anything.

Takane doesn't seem to be very patient, though, because after a moment of silence she speaks up, "So... what did you want to ask?"

Ayano slams her journal on the table.

"We make the questions here!"

"Ayano, Jesus, calm down," Shintaro asks. This was so embarrassing. He turns to the counselors and grimaces. "Sorry about the whole interrogation thing."

"It's fine," Haruka laughs. "I suppose you need something to keep yourselves entertained, and it's not a first from Ayano-chan. I'm just happy you're back to hanging out with other kids, Shintaro-kun."

Shintaro crosses his arms and blushes a little. Why did that guy have to be such a walking sunshine? It bothered him. Takane shrugged,

"What's the mystery this time, anyway?" when she asks this, Ayano points her pen at her, probably attempting to be intimidating and failing epically (Shintaro thinks she's too cute to be intimidating) (wait what) (he did not just think that, please forget about it). Takane sighs, "Right, okay. You make the questions."

"Yes, so, my first question," Ayano finally starts, sitting back down and forgetting about her bad cop act as she offers a charming smile. "You guys used to be campers here, correct?"

They both look at each other, confused, and then Haruka just asks, "...How did you know that?"

"I mean... this place isn't very, um, popular, compared to other camps and stuff," she answers, bashfully. Wow, so even someone as positive as Ayano knew how to recognize a shitty place like this... Shintaro surpresses a smile. "And... I was curious as to why you worked here if that was the case, so I asked my dad."

Trying not to laugh at Ayano's weird way of speaking as she tried to sound serious, Shintaro thought about it, and admitted to himself he understood why Ayano would be curious. Because Haruka is way too much of a good person to deserve working here, and despite he didn't like Takane, Shintaro also recognized she wasn't all that bad and according to every camper, she's " _too cool to exist_ ". So why did these two not so bad people have this fate?

"I'm not really sure how this is important but... Same story as everyone's, honestly; parents didn't want to deal with us so they sent us here," Takane explains a bit further, trying to avoid details. "Then we were too old to be campers. And therefore we were forced to get this job that barely even pays and has stolen all of our summers away for several years in a row. Yay."

She weakly bumps her fist in the air as she lets out that monotone "yay", and raises an eyebrow at Ayano, who was struggling with writing absolutely everything she said. Once she was done, Ayano nods as she puts up her best serious expression. Then, she asks, "And... about Miss Azami?"

They both frown, "What about her?"

"Has she been here ever since you guys were kids?" her eyes were shining with curiosity. "Did she look a lot younger and stuff?"

"Well... yes and no," Takane now looked uncomfortable too. "She's just always been around and she has always looked the same. The rules have always been the same too. She's... she's really weird."

"She is odd," Haruka agrees, but quickly adds, "She has shown to have a kind heart, though. She trusts Takane and I a lot, too."

"Probably because we've been wasting our summers here for like ten years now, as camper or counselors."

"...Has it really been ten years?"

"Surely. Maybe even more."

Shintaro shivers at the idea of being in this camp ten or more summers in a row. He's just in his second one, and he already wants to stab himself and perhaps everyone else.

"So you guys have been here for ten years? You... you must know this camp very well, then," Ayano looked nervous all of a sudden, but Haruka nor Takane seemed to notice. They just nodded as if it was obvious, which Shintaro understood because there wasn't much to even _know_  about this camp. It was small and as everyone knows, mysteryous. "Okay so... have you ever, um, broken one of the three rules?"

Haruka raises an eyebrow and just like the night he found Shintaro in the woods, he didn't look angry. Just that poor try of being angry, as he showed concern instead, "What do you mean?"

Ayano hesitates, "I mean, have you ever gone into the woods?"

There's a pause after her question. A pause that Shintaro thought should have been completed by lightning from a storm or something, just to make it more dramatic. Except that the sun was shining stubbornly and they could hear the sound of the others campers playing outside, being watched by Kenjirou while Haruka and Takane were away. The counselors seemed disturbed and somewhat upset at the question.

Before Ayano could ask again, Haruka asks the same thing as Takane when they first sat down, "Just _what_  are you investigating, Ayano-chan?"

Ayano seemed embarrassed, but she forces herself to answer, "The Beast from the woods."

As soon as she says it, Haruka stands up from his seat. For a split second, Shintaro'd swear he looked like he had a wicked expression and bright eyes. Bright yellow eyes. But after Shintaro blinks, all there was odd about Haruka's expression was that his usual cheerfulness was painted with anxiousness.

"I _told_  you to stay away from the matter," he starts, and Takane stands up in concern as well, although in her case, the concern was about Haruka. "I told you when you asked me about Shintaro-kun acting weird, but you promised you weren't going to make a big deal out of it! You lied about it to get me off your back, didn't you?"

Ayano, who clearly didn't take that promise seriously and clearly thought it wouldn't upset Haruka so much, looks like she was going to melt into her own guilt. She swallows a little, and tries to explain, "It's just for fun! I just–

" _Didn't_  you?"

After promptly sealing her mouth when Haruka talked over her, Ayano looks over at Takane with sad eyes. Then at Shintaro, which makes him see just how embarrassed she was about being nagged at. Especially by the calmest person ever.

She answers in a quick puff, trying to let out all the words together to try and get a chance to explain, "Yes, I did. I just want to know more about the voices and the yellow–"

" _Don't_  say it!" still, Haruka doesn't allow her to talk again. Shintaro started to feel something in his stomach stir at the sight of his apparent discomfort with the topic, "I'll– I'll tell your dad if you keep messing around with it!"

His words seemed to trigger Ayano because she also leaves her sit in a jump, "No! Please don't tell him! He'll freak!"

"Then promise me– and this time for _real_ , that you'll give up this "investigation"!" he begins to slightly raise his voice, but immediately seems to calm down once Takane puts a hand on his shoulder. He looks at her, distressed, before looking back at Ayano. He sighs, following up with his usual tone, "I just... don't want you to get into trouble. I won't tell your dad, but you have to promise to stay away from this whole "mystery" you're so obsessed with, okay?"

Ayano doesn't answer, so Haruka repeats,

" _Okay_?"

Looking down to her feet, this time she gives an answer, "Okay."

"You know that even if you don't do what I say, he'll find out anyway."

"I know."

"Promise?"

"I promise," she smiles at him, but he doesn't smile back. Shintaro sees her cross her fingers behind her. "I'm sorry, Haruka-san. I didn't know it was a delicate subject to touch with you."

Shintaro should've figured, and he's sure Takane and Ayano think the same. Haruka always looked beyond uncomfortable when the woods were brought up, and he seemed happy with the rule to stay away from it. Hiyori suddenly going home wasn't good timing with Ayano's conspiracy theories, either.

"Hey, go lay down in the cabin for a bit," Takane tells him, giving him a calm smile Shintaro thought he'd never see on her face. It seems to work for Haruka, because he nods as she tells him, "I'll take care of them, 'kay? Just drink some water and try to calm down."

"...Alright," Haruka sighs, steals a last look at Ayano and Shintaro, and then turns around to leave the mess hall.

Once the doors close behind him, Takane sits down again and gestures the kids to do the same. She looks at them as if to make sure they felt bad about what they just did, and even if Shintaro technically didn't do anything, he felt horrible. He couldn't imagine what Ayano must be feeling.

"Was it true what you said? The thing that this was just for fun?" Takane then asks, looking directly at Ayano. She quickly nods, maybe for too long, and the counselor looks away, "So, you don't want to break the rules at all or anything like it, right? You just wanna know?"

"Yes! I swear!" Ayano says, hope suddenly filling her face. "D – do you know anything?"

"Well, yes and no, I guess," she makes a face. "I know why Haruka gets so upset about the woods, though, if that's a lead. You just gotta promise to stop pushing the subject on him, alright?"

"Yes, I promise!"

She really promises a lot of things, doesn't she?

Shintaro feels useless and bored. Useless because Ayano didn't even need him here and bored because he didn't even care about this at all. Or at least that's what he kept telling himself; if he really didn't care, he wouldn't be here. He would have refused to hear about Ayano's dreams. He probably wouldn't have heard the voices in the first place.

He tries to shake away his own thoughts as Takane starts talking,

"Well, you know how we were campers here, too. At first we didn't really care about it, but at some point we became exited about the urban legends of the place and stuff. We never took it by heart, though. It wasn't like we thought there was an actual beast in the woods, we just liked to mess around, he doodled and I invented stories about it, you know?" he thinks she may have the glimpse of a smile as she talked about the past, but manages to keep a straight face. "But... one night, it happened to him what happened to you, Shintaro."

Shintaro doesn't understand what she's talking about until he realizes she must be talking about That Night. Damn, how many people did Haruka tell that to? ...Probably just Takane and Ayano but still, wow, traitor.

"Except you had him to take you back to the cabins," she continues, seemingly getting upset. "He... he didn't have anyone to help him snap out of it. He woke up by himself, eventually, but– but when he did, he was already _in_  the woods."

"He saw a yellow light!?"

"I don't know what yellow light you're talking about," Takane forces a chuckle. "I just know what I told you. I drilled him for weeks to tell me why he refused to keep talking about the stories we liked so much. After he told me that, we didn't discuss any of it again. That's about it. We can agree there's something weird going on in the woods, but it makes him feel terrible."

"Oh," Ayano seemed almost disappointed. "There isn't a twist? There isn't an "and he was never the same"?"

"Nope. He never acted differently. The only thing that changed was his enthusiasm about the woods," she shrugs. "There's obviously something he didn't tell me. I'm _sure_  he saw something. Man, maybe it's that yellow light you're insistent with, but that's everything he told me, and I never asked anything else."

Ayano and him share a look. She seemed even more confused than before. Shintaro found himself anxiously wondering if the woods ever had a camper succesfully walk away forever, and if it had, what had it done to them?

_Where is Hiyori?_

They thank Takane for telling them about this, but before they could leave, she says,

"Don't forget about your promise. Give up your curiosity, Ayano."

She wasn't facing her, so she couldn't see her expression, but Shintaro did. Ayano looked stressed and guilty. She knew she promised and she knew she'd break her promise, again. Apparently, even without seeing her face, Takane knew that too.

"Haruka doesn't have the heart to get you in trouble with your dad, y'know. But I do," Shintaro couldn't see Takane's face either, but he could imagine her face as she spoke. "If you dare to make Haruka upset again, I'm not hesitating just because you're a few years younger. Some things are better left in the dark."

* * *

 

Shintaro felt awkward, which wasn't a surprise.

He was alone with Ayano a lot, apparently because her father forbid her to speak about the weird things from the woods (which is something Shintaro had to figure out by himself), so they always had to sneak around to talk about it out loud, but today he felt nervous.

Perhaps because she wasn't talking. She seemed sad she had made Haruka upset and that her innocent curiosity seemed to be tied to something so serious. Shintaro supposed there was more than just her curiosity tied to it, though. After all, he did believe she had those dreams. And he did believe the other book was her mother's now.

"The book. I mean, your mom's book," Shintaro breaks the silence, and avoids looking at her as he focuses his eyes on his dirt covered sneakers. "Did your dad take it away?"

Ayano nods, also avoiding to look at him. The blue ink which she stained herself with this morning was still on her lip. He thought she'd continue to be quiet, but being Ayano he should have figured that was probably impossible,

"He threw it away a few years ago but I rescued it," she explains, dejectedly. "But he found me reading it a couple of days ago and took it away again."

"What a jerk," he lets slip, but fortunately Ayano cracks a smile. "I – I mean, throwing away your mom's stuff is really shitty. What did she think of that?"

She's quiet for a moment, but finally looks at him with the most forced smile ever, "Well... he threw away most of her stuff after she, eh, left."

"Where did she go?"

Ayano raises her eyebrows as if to say "think harder". Shintaro winces.

"She... died, right?"

"...I was four, so I don't have a lot of memories of her," she reassured, probably because she didn't want to hear the infamous "I'm sorry about your lose." "She used to work at this camp, too, with Miss Azami."

"And she investigated the Beast?"

"Yup. She never wrote anything about the yellow light though," Ayano says. "Which is something I dream about a lot and– and you said you also saw it. I need to know if Haruka-san saw it too, I mean, it's pretty obvious he did, even Takane-san thinks so! ...But I can't ask him... And– and I want to know where's Hiyori."

Shintaro suddenly felt aware of his feelings. He felt genuinely bad for Ayano losing her mother; he realizes that as much as he hates it or her, they have became friends and he didn't like the idea of her suffering because of her deceased mom or being forbidden to investigate something she's so obsessed with. Even if it was more like that something was obsessed with her.

He was about to do something very stupid and put an arm around her, but he was saved by his loud sister jumping into scene, screaming, "BIG BROTHER!"

Shintaro almost falls from the bench he was sitting on, and Ayano also jumps in her seat, both looking at the smiling Momo with confusion.

"Um, hey, Momo," he goes, awkwardly. "What's wrong?"

"Brought you another pudding," she says, fishing in her pocket and taking it out along with a lot of glitter. Shintaro takes it reluctantly. Momo looks apologetic with Ayano, "Sorry, Ayano-chan! Didn't know you and my big brother were hanging out. You can share though!"

"Yeah, thanks," Shintaro finally says. It's not that he didn't like pudding but this was the third one she was giving him just this afternoon. "Chill out with stealing from the kitchen, though."

"They won't catch me alive!" Momo screams and runs off.

Shintaro's wants to apologize for his weirdo of a sister but she suddenly comes back, gives him a wet kiss on the cheek and says, "Hope you're feeling better today!" and leaves as fast as she appeared.

"She's so sweet, I wish I had a little sibling!" Ayano laughs, delighted, as Shintaro wipes his sister's saliva from his cheek in embarrassment. "To be fair, Tsubomi, Shuuya and Kousuke call me big sister and they're as adorable."

Shintaro wrinkles his nose. Those are three orphans that clinged to Ayano because of her kindness so he thinks it's depressing rather than adorable, but he doesn't say that.

They stay in silence. He thinks back on the conversation they were having before Momo butted in, and sighs. He pushes back all of his thoughts as he says, "Um, my dad died."

Ayano looks at him in surprise, and Shintaro starts to mentally freak out. What kind of idiot simply says that out of nowhere?

"U– uh, I'm just saying, because, I understand you losing your mom 'cause I lost my dad–"

"How old were you?" she didn't seem to care about how unexpected his words were, and instead she looked actually sorry for him, without necessarely saying it (fortunately.)

He sighs, wondering why he even said it.

_Because I wanted her to know that I also trust her?_

"I was ten."

"Oh, so recent!"

"I guess... yeah," he tries his best to not tear up and simultaneously make it sound like it wasn't a big deal. "He– um, he was really close to Momo. They went on a trip together and things went wrong. My sister barely made it."

"I see," Ayano looks down. "Your mom must be feeling very lonely back at home without you two, right?"

He shrugs, genuinely curious about what on earth his mom was feeling like. "She's been a wreck ever since he died. So I have no idea what to tell you about her."

There'd be another silence following his statement, if it wasn't for Ayano eventually saying, "Thanks for telling me."

"Um... why?"

"Because now I feel like I know you better," Ayano smiles so radiantly Shintaro feels his heart make a flip. "And I feel like you finally reciprocate my friendship."

He really did try to prevent himself from smiling back, but of course he failed miserably.


End file.
